Iain MacIntyre: Ghosts, goblins of last season haunt Canucks as they stagger on to dark NHL road

Washington Capitals' Dmitry Orlov, back, of Russia, and Vancouver Canucks' Brendan Gaunce collide during the first period of an NHL hockey game in Vancouver, B.C., on Saturday October 29, 2016.DARRYL DYCK / THE CANADIAN PRESS

The Vancouver Canucks are nothing if not industrious. In the first 15 days of their season, they’ve stacked a five-game losing streak on top of a four-game winning streak, and everyone would feel better if it were the other way around.

Suddenly, October feels a lot like last spring for the National Hockey League team, and that’s highly disconcerting, too.

For a second straight game, the Canucks played well on Saturday and still lost, 5-2 to the Washington Capitals, whose two late goals included an empty-netter.

Vancouver is last in the NHL in scoring, and they trail by daylight. Their 1.78 goals-per-game is nearly a full score behind the league median of 2.71, and the Canucks are about half a puck behind the next most inert offences, which had averaged 2.25 goals-per-game as of Sunday afternoon.

But the worst thing is this: after squandering their 4-0 head start to the regular season and failing to take advantage of an October schedule that saw them play seven of nine games at home, the Canucks embark today on a six-game eastern road trip in which no opponent is easy and a couple of the games, including Wednesday’s opener against the Montreal Canadiens, look unwinnable.

Cue the creepy Halloween music.

“You want to take care of home ice always,” Canuck winger Daniel Sedin said of the 0-3 homestand last week that included two shutouts. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s early on or later on. That’s the frustrating thing: we won our first four home games, and the last three haven’t been good enough. But there’s no reason we can’t be a good team on the road. We should be able to play a simple game that suits us well.

“We want to be a good team, and good teams don’t lose this many in a row. We’ve got to make sure it stops. We’ll show what kind of team we are on the road.”

Nobody embodies the Canucks’ offensive struggles as much as Loui Eriksson and Sven Baertschi. Eriksson is the $36-million-US free agent who scored 30 goals last season for the Boston Bruins and is expected to do the same for the Canucks. Baertschi is a dynamic 24-year-old winger whose good second half last season was supposed to be an epiphany, a launch pad towards a major uptick in production this year.

Vancouver Canucks’ Brendan Gaunce, right, skates with the puck while joined by teammate Sven Baertschi, left, as Washington Capitals’ Andre Burakovsky, of Austria, (65) and T.J. Oshie (77) trail the play during the first period of an NHL hockey game in Vancouver, B.C., on Saturday October 29, 2016.DARRYL DYCK /
THE CANADIAN PRESS

Through nine games, neither has a goal. Give Baertschi and Eriksson five goals between them – and that might still have been below the pre-season over/under for October – and the Canucks probably have another couple of wins.

“It was fine the first four games when we were winning,” Baertschi said Saturday after earning an assist on Bo Horvat’s goal. “Now it’s a little tougher on me (mentally). But I’m going to fight through this. I’m going to stay patient and think when the goals come, they’ll come in bunches.

“There’s got to be a sense of urgency for us. I think that’s the most important part. I don’t think we’ve played well enough the last few games. The way we started the season, I think we were competing better and our structure was great. We were fighting for pucks. The last few games, at times we got away from our structure and it cost us.

“You don’t want to regret (at the end of the season) that you didn’t give it your all for a little span at the beginning. All we can do is push each other and hold each other accountable, and get through this together.”

Canuck coach Willie Desjardins, whose leash length may be revealed on this road trip, conceded the lack of production from Eriksson and Baertschi has surprised him. He noted that Baertschi is getting scoring chances and his line with Horvat and Jake Virtanen was good Saturday, but said Eriksson has yet to find a comfortable spot in the lineup.

“I think he is feeling pressure to perform,” Desjardins said. “I think he feels responsible. I haven’t seemed to find a good match with him yet on a line.”

The Canuck power play, which was 0-for-3 on Saturday and looked fairly dismal on its first two chances, is 3-for-28 in October and ranked 28th in the league. Eriksson has had 28 minutes of power-play time, Baertschi 12½.

Injured Canucks Alex Burrows (neck) and Derek Dorsett (shoulder) are expected to practise today and could play in Montreal, but neither should be expected to help the offence. The Canucks returned minor-league call-up Mike Zalewski to the Utica Comets on Sunday, which was a day off for the team.

“Tonight was a big game,” veteran Jannik Hansen said Saturday. “Being 5-3-1 or 4-4-1 looks a whole lot different when you’re going out on a six-game road trip to some tough cities.

“You never want to fall behind (in the standings). Your margin for error is so small. You lose one game and you see other teams pulling away from you. You scrape and claw every point you can get now to get yourself a cushion. You want to play important games and meaningful games in March and April. Nobody wants to play those games that don’t matter.”

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Iain MacIntyre: Ghosts, goblins of last season haunt Canucks as they stagger on to dark NHL road

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